Tag Archives: Ancient Science fiction

ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION: FUNGUS ISLE (1923)

FUNGUS ISLE (1923) – Written by Philip M Fisher. Fungus Isle has the same proto-Creature Feature feel to it that The True Inheritors (qv) had. In the case of the previously reviewed story, it was a forerunner of various giant spider flicks.

In the case of Fungus Isle it seems like the inspiration for the 1963 Japanese film Attack of the Mushroom People, aka Matango, the Fungus of Terror.  

A handful of friends find themselves shipwrecked on an uncharted island near New Guinea. The island is crawling with various types of fungus and our protagonists eventually encounter some fungi that are nearly humanoid and can walk.

The spores shot out by the fungi cling to human flesh, eventually accumulating to the point where they completely cover the body. Saltwater serves as an effective remedy to clean off the spores but there is no food on the island except mushrooms. Continue reading

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THE SHIP OF SILENT MEN (1920) ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION/ HORROR MIX

THE SHIP OF SILENT MEN (1920) – Written by Philip M Fisher. The crew of a ship called the Lanoa set out from Hawaii. A few days later an abnormally powerful electrical storm strikes, leaving the area unusually cold in its wake.

The men on board the Lanoa don’t have much time to ponder that before they begin receiving distress signals from a ship identified as the Karnak. Even though the message indicates that the death of the entire crew seems imminent, the Lanoa receives the message again later, after assuming the Karnak met with disaster. 

The Lanoa investigates and eventually arrives alongside the Karnak, whose crew is shambling around performing their normal duties but in a very sluggish manner. An away team from the Lanoa rows over to see what is going on when the Karnak’s crew refuse to respond to any attempt at communication. Continue reading

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ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION: THE Nth MAN (1920-1924)

Nth ManTHE Nth MAN (1920 – 1924?) – Written by Homer Eon Flint, who died in 1924. Though this short novel was not published until 1928 many fans of the author argue that it was actually written in 1920.

The story is set in what was then the near future of the 1930s. The Nth Man is an enormous humanoid figure with hardened skin like the shells of certain species of animals. He is supposedly 2 miles tall, but that would make many of the events in the novel impractical if not impossible.

The mysterious giant is at first regarded as half rumor and half Tall Tale as he sets the world talking with some incredible actions. He tears apart some of the Great Wall of China, he removes the head of the Sphinx and places it on top of one of the pyramids and he picks up a ship bound for Australia and carries it for thousands of miles.  

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Showing more cognitive purpose the Nth Man also makes off with an entire building to thwart a plot by anarchists and saves a little girl from drowning. All of the preceding deeds have been accomplished under cover of darkness but now the colossus comes out into the open, emerging from San Francisco Bay to tower over the city.  

The Nth Man walks from coast to coast, easily defeating the aerial and land forces that attempt to stop him. You would think this proto-Kaiju sequence would have inspired a film adaptation long ago. The gigantic figure goes to Washington D.C. and lays down some demands from on high. Continue reading

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ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION: THE WAR UNDER THE SEA (1892)

War Under the SeaTHE WAR UNDER THE SEA (1892) – Written by Georges Le Faure. This sci-fi work was intended as an escapist societal salve to a French public still smarting from their loss to Germanic forces during the Franco-Prussian War just over two decades earlier.  

One of the main characters in The War Under the Sea is Count Andre Petersen, a French military man who saw service in the Franco-Prussian War. The Count was appalled at France’s humiliation and since then has been running a secret intelligence organization to ensure that his homeland will be much better prepared the next time they must face Germans in war. And that’s not the only outrageous science fiction concept put forth in this novel. (I’m kidding.)

Unfortunately for Count Andre the Germans have been outmaneuvering his organization at the arts of spycraft and know the names of every member of his secret organization – even the Danish, Austrian and Alsation operatives. Unless the Count agrees to a political marriage to the daughter of a German Consul followed by the disbanding of his spy network the Germans will kill every one of his agents. Continue reading

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ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION: UNDERWATER HOUSE (1899)

UNDERWATER HOUSE (1899) – Written by Frank Bailey Millard, this short story was first published in the March 1899 issue of The Black Cat magazine.

Frederick Vining, a brilliant young scientist from a wealthy family, has established a base on a South Pacific island. He hires the local Kau people to construct his latest passion – a house at the bottom of a bowl-shaped valley.

The house is being designed to endure underwater when Vining diverts a nearby river to flood the valley. During the months of construction, Fred writes regularly to his fiancee Marcia Tait back in America. Continue reading

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ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION: THE ULTIMATE INHERITORS (1914)

Giant spiderTHE ULTIMATE INHERITORS (1914) – Written by Berg Bellair. This is a very entertaining work of vintage or “ancient” science fiction and is especially noteworthy for the way it anticipates the many “big bug” movies of the 1950s and later.  

In the California desert, where the Golden State borders Arizona and Mexico, a pair of investment miners named Big Ike Pemberton and Joe Kinzie save an older man from dying of exposure. The man turns out to be Doctor Bauer, a scientist who was investigating uranium deposits in the vicinity.  

Dr Bauer is the sole survivor of an expedition whose exploratory blasting work accidentally freed dozens of giant, horse-sized spiders from subterranean caverns. Bauer has photographic proof of this claim and theorizes that radiation from the uranium deposits mutated the spiders into their current enormous state. Continue reading

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ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION ABOUT WORLD WAR ONE

Veterans Day is tomorrow, so here’s another World War One post. 

BLOOD AND IRON (1917)Written by Robert Hobart Davis & Perley Poore Sheehan.

Dramatic diesel-punk depiction of advanced technology being used in World War One. In Germany one of the Kaiser’s scientists is experimenting with replacing lost limbs and organs with mechanical replacements. 

He has been trying to create cyborgs out of maimed German soldiers from the front lines.  Continue reading

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ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION: EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS’ FIRST TWO PELLUCIDAR STORIES

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Recent online discussions among film critics dealt with how the Jurassic Park series could be livened up.

Personally, I think it shot its bolt and should be done and left alone. Filmmakers who still want to deal in large numbers of dinosaurs should start adapting the Pellucidar novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs instead. They’re just begging for modern adaptations!

AT THE EARTH’S CORE (1914) – This tale was originally serialized in several issues of All-Story Weekly in 1914, then was assembled in novel form in 1922. American mining heir David Innes and his much older inventor friend Abner Perry test-drive Abner’s diesel-punk subterranean tunnel-drilling vehicle the Iron Mole.   

The pair inadvertently drive the train engine sized vehicle to an Inner Earth realm called Pellucidar in the language of the native inhabitants. Amazed by this find, David and Abner set out on foot to explore some of the rainforest region and realize it is inhabited by thousands of dinosaur species long extinct on the Earth’s surface. Continue reading

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THE DAY OF RESIS (1897) ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION

THE DAY OF RESIS (1897) – This sci-fi novel was written by Lillian Frances Mentor. The main character is Enola Cameron, a strong-willed 20-year-old American woman from a well to do family. She purchases a very old goatskin document describing a hidden African kingdom called On.

The goatskin also features a rough map of the route to On. Enola proclaims that men don’t have a monopoly on leading lives of adventure and names herself the commander of a co-ed expedition to find On.

The participants consist of her lady friends, mixed male and female relatives and Henry, who is in love with her. In a gross element common to a lot of stories back then, he is also her cousin. Enola boldly leads the expedition to Africa and a march to the interior.

At length the party reaches the mountain range which supposedly conceals the Kingdom of On. Enola and company manage to find the secret tunnel that leads to the enormous canyon which houses On. Continue reading

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ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION: PSI CASSIOPEIA (1854) FAR AHEAD OF ITS TIME IN WORLD BUILDING

Star by C I Defontenay betterPSI CASSIOPEIA, or STAR: A MARVELOUS HISTORY OF WORLDS IN OUTER SPACE (1854) – Written by Dr Charlemagne Ischer Defontenay, a French M.D. and author. Long before J.R.R. Tolkien churned out obsessive amounts of fine detail about his fictional Middle Earth, Defontenay produced this volume of history, poetry and drama from his fictional planets in the star system Psi Cassiopeia.  

The narrator of the story is supposedly translating alien documents which he discovered in an artificial meteor that crashed in the Himalayas. The documents were from a planet called (incongruously enough) “Star.”

Star by C I DeFontenayThe system where that planet is located is a three-star system. Ruliel is the large, white star at the center, around which orbit the two lesser stars Altether (green) and Erragror (blue). The planet called Star is orbited by large planetoids/ moons named Tassul, Lessur, Rudar and Elier. Throwing all science to the winds the planet is also orbited by a small red star called Urrias.  

Star and its satellites are inhabited except, of course, for Urrias. The translated documents cover a roughly 1,000 year period of events regarding these worlds. The ancient Starian humanoids formed a united world-wide culture which started as an Empire before becoming a socialist planet economically and politically. The documents also claim that their culture boasted beautiful architecture, incredible feats of engineering and awe-inspiring works of art.

At one point a plague swept the globe, reducing the proud Starian civilization to chaos. A Nihilist Cult formed as the plague kept whittling away at the population over the course of years. In the post-apocalyptic ruins the Nihilists formed a fanatical religion devoted to ending all life on Star. The zealots formed armies which exterminated millions of Starians with the intention of taking their own lives when all non-members of their cult had been wiped out. Continue reading

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